On the Eve of the Passover and Easter, the Scribe arrived at the outer
fringe of the rainbow-robed, fur-capped throng that shook in
passionate lamentation before that Titanic fragment of Temple Wall,
which is the sole relic of Israel's national glories. Roaring billows
of hysterical prayer beat against the monstrous, symmetric blocks,
quarried by King Solomon's servants and smoothed by the kisses of the
generations. A Fatherland lost eighteen hundred years ago, and still
this strange indomitable race hoped on!
"Hasten, hasten, O Redeemer of Zion."
And from amid the mourners, one tall, stately figure, robed in purple
velvet, turned his face to the Scribe, saying, with out-stretched hand
and in a voice of ineffable love--
"_Shalom Aleichem._"
And the Scribe was shaken, for lo! it was the face of the Christ.